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Archive for January, 2014

Once more the magic days are come
With stronger sun and milder air;
The shops are full of daffodils;
There’s golden leisure everywhere.
I heard my Lou this morning shout:
“Here comes the hurdy-gurdy man!”
And through the open window caught
The piping of the urban Pan.

I laid my wintry task aside,
And took a day to follow joy:
The trail of beauty and the call
That lured me when I was a boy.
I looked, and there looked up at me
A smiling, swarthy, hairy man
With kindling eye—and well I knew
The piping of the urban Pan.

He caught my mood; his hat was off;
I tossed the ungrudged silver down.
The cunning vagrant, every year
He casts his spell upon the town!
And we must fling him, old and young,
Our dimes or coppers, as we can;
And every heart must leap to hear
The piping of the urban Pan.

The music swells and fades again,
And I in dreams am far away,
Where a bright river sparkles down
To meet a blue Aegean bay.
There, in the springtime of the world,
Are dancing fauns, and in their van,
Is one who pipes a deathless tune—
The earth-born and the urban Pan.

And so he follows down the block,
A troop of children in his train,
The light-foot dancers of the street
Enamored of the reedy strain.
I hear their laughter rise and ring
Above the noise of truck and van,
As down the mellow wind fades out
The piping of the urban Pan.

The sturdy rock for all his strength
By raging seas is rent in twaine:
The marble stone is pearst at length,
With little drops of drizling rain:
The oxe doth yeeld unto the yoke,
The steele obeyeth the hammer stroke.

The stately stagge, that seemes so stout,
By yalping hounds at bay is set:
The swiftest bird, that flies about,
Is caught at length in fowlers net:
The greatest fish, in deepest brooke,
Is soon deceived by subtill hooke.

Yea, man himselfe, unto whose will
All things are bounden to obey,
For all his wit and worthie skill,
Doth fade at length, and fall away.
There is nothing but time doeth waste;
The heavens, the earth consume at last.

But vertue sits triumphing still
Upon the throne of glorious fame:
Though spiteful death mans body kill,
Yet hurts he not his vertuous name:
By life or death what so betides,
The state of vertue never slides.

Today broke like a china plate,
rain and cloud, drifting smoke;
tonight fell like a suiciding athlete
or a bad joke.
I went to bed with a startling headache
and was distinctly no better when I woke,
I remained dumb in the company of those
who were happy only when I spoke.

Something new has moved uncomfortably close,
something not previously seen:
a talent for aiming the poisoned dart,
for detecting the touch of the unclean,
for discovering that, in the pure of heart,
there is something unforgivably obscene.

My! but it wis waesome on Naebuddy’s Land,
And the deid they were rottin’ on every hand.
And the rockets like corpse candles hauntit the sky,
And the winds o’ destruction went shudderin’ by.
There wis skelpin’ o’ bullets and skirlin’ o’ shells,
And breengin’ o’ bombs and a thoosand death-knells;
But cooryin’ doon in a Jack Johnson hole
Little fashed the twa men o’ the List’nin’ Patrol.
For sweeter than honey and bricht as a gem
Wis the thocht o’ the haggis that waitit for them.

Yet alas! in oor moments o’ sunniest cheer
Calamity’s aften maist cruelly near.
And while the twa talked o’ their puddin’ divine
The Boches below them were howkin’ a mine.
And while the twa cracked o’ the feast they would hae,
The fuse it wis burnin’ and burnin’ away.
Then sudden a roar like the thunner o’ doom,
A hell-leap o’ flame . . . then the wheesht o’ the tomb.

There wis death and destruction on every hand;
There wis havoc and horror on Naebuddy’s Land.
And the shells bickered doun wi’ a crump and a glare,
And the hameless wee bullets were dingin’ the air.
Yet on they went staggerin’, cooryin’ doun
When the stutter and cluck o’ a Maxim crept roun’.
And the legs o’ McPhun they were sturdy and stoot,
And McPhee on his back kept a bonnie look-oot.
“On, on, ma brave lad! We’re no faur frae the goal;
I can hear the braw sweerin’ o’ Sergeant McCole.”

But strength has its leemit, and Private McPhun,
Wi’ a sab and a curse fell his length on the grun’.
Then Private McPhee shoutit doon in his ear:
“Jist think o’ the haggis! I smell it from here.
It’s gushin’ wi’ juice, it’s embaumin’ the air;
It’s steamin’ for us, and we’re–jist–aboot–there.”
Then Private McPhun answers: “Dommit, auld chap!
For the sake o’ that haggis I’ll gang till I drap.”
And he gets on his feet wi’ a heave and a strain,
And onward he staggers in passion and pain.
And the flare and the glare and the fury increase,
Till you’d think they’d jist taken a’ hell on a lease.
And on they go reelin’ in peetifu’ plight,
And someone is shoutin’ away on their right;
And someone is runnin’, and noo they can hear
A sound like a prayer and a sound like a cheer;
And swift through the crash and the flash and the din,
The lads o’ the Hielands are bringin’ them in.

“They’re baith sairly woundit, but is it no droll
Hoo they rave aboot haggis?” says Sergeant McCole.
When hirplin alang comes wee Wullie McNair,
And they a’ wonnert why he wis greetin’ sae sair.
And he says: “I’d jist liftit it oot o’ the pot,
And there it lay steamin’ and savoury hot,
When sudden I dooked at the fleech o’ a shell,
And it–dropped on the haggis and dinged it tae hell.”

And oh, but the lads were fair taken aback;
Then sudden the order wis passed tae attack,
And up from the trenches like lions they leapt,
And on through the nicht like a torrent they swept.
On, on, wi’ their bayonets thirstin’ before!
On, on tae the foe wi’ a rush and a roar!
And wild to the welkin their battle-cry rang,
And doon on the Boches like tigers they sprang:
And there wisna a man but had death in his ee,
For he thocht o’ the haggis o’ Private McPhee.

I make not my division of the hours
By dials, clocks, or waking birds’ acclaim,
Nor measure seasons by the reigning flowers,
The spring’s green glories, or the autumn’s flame.
To me thy absence winter is, and night,
Thy presence spring, and the meridian day.
From thee I draw my darkness and my light,
Now swart eclipse, now more than heavenly ray.
Thy coming warmeth all my soul like fire,
And through my heartstrings melodies do run,
As poets fabled the Memnonian lyre
Hymned acclamation to the rising sun.
My heart hums music in thy influence set:
So winds put harps Aeolian on the fret.

Because up the coal road way the bees came out so nicely.
Because I have got my rifle cleaned out and she is bright as a whistle.
Because the geese are in and one of them lays.
Because it rained very heavily and some of the road washed away.
Because every jack one of our cows have got calves.
Because the baby is crying. Tiara is sewing. Ellee is propping her face up.
Because Dad and Mr Jackson got the maul and struck Jerry just above the nose.
Because when I am older I want to drive a twenty ton articulated tip truck.
Because do you know who it was? Well, it was Ben Price!
Because I get wild in a second.
Because Uncle and Dad and Uncle Charlie went out egging in the Mary.
Because Alfred Douglas has had 50 cuts with the cane.
Because I have had the cane once and stood on the form twice.
Because Fairy is a bit lame on her nearside foreleg. She had a stone in it.
Because they had the inquest in the new dinner room.
Because Lall said she won’t be good friends with Carrie.
Because I am learning music.
Because Don says the orange trees will bear fruit in seven years.
Because I wish you many happy returns.
Because the bees came out so nicely and began to clean out their home.

Give me my Heart! For no man liveth heartles!
And now deprived of heart I am but dead,
(And since thou hast it, in his tables read!
Whether he rest at ease, in joys and smartless?
Whether beholding him thine eyes were dartless?
Or to what bondage his enthralment leads?)
Return, dear Heart! and me to mine restore!
Ah, let me thee possess! Return to me!
I find no means, devoid of skill and artless.
Thither return, where thou triumphed before!
Let me of him but repossessor be!
And when thou gives to me mine heart again
Thyself thou dost bestow! For thou art She!
Whom I call Heart! and of whom I complain.